Oliwa Park

What makes it special

What you see first is a French baroque garden. Abbot Jacek Rybiński laid it out in the mid-18th century on the model of Le Nôtre's gardens at Versailles, and it survives little changed. Its main axis runs from the rococo Abbots' Palace along a lime avenue to the Swan Pond, a formal ornamental pond.

Look east along the Ducal View, a lime avenue planted so the pond seemed to run on into the Bay of Gdańsk, several kilometres away. Trees now hide the sea.

The English section, laid out later, sets grottoes and small pavilions in dense, dark planting, away from the open formal garden.

The palm house is a glass rotunda 24 metres high whose roof opens automatically. Its tallest plant is a 17-metre araucaria from the Australian rainforest. Around it grow bananas, cacti, agaves, orchids, cycads and a Brazilian jelly palm.

Visiting

From the south-east gate by the tram terminus, begin on Bukowa Aleja, the beech alley. Then pick up the main avenue at the Abbots' Palace and follow it down to the Swan Pond.

The two whispering grottoes stand beside the palm house, facing each other across one path. Stand in one shell with your back to a friend in the other and whisper: each of you hears the other clearly. You enter the palm house itself through the café in the orangery.

Finish deeper in the park, in the English section. Look for the garden pavilion and the corner called Paradise, where a stone bust of the poet Mickiewicz stands.

Tips

Pair the park with Oliwa Cathedral, which stands beside it, and walk between the two on the same visit.

Plan a visit in August around Mozartiana, the international festival of Mozart's music that the park has hosted every year since 2006.